Washington needs to focus on national debt
Joe Zentis
Hermitage
A million here, a million there ... a lot of money? Today, for our government, it’s chump change. Today, the only useful number is trillion.
Unfortunately, a trillion isn’t just a little more than a million; it’s a million times a million. And the national debt is about 11.7 times that, growing at the rate of about $3,800 million per day.
Let’s put that in perspective. President Obama instructed his cabinet to come up with $100 million in budget cuts. That’s like me owing a loan shark $117,000 and telling him not to worry, because I found a way to save $1. ($1 is to $117,000 as $100 million is to $11.7 trillion).
Then he finds out I’m borrowing more money to pay for full coverage health insurance for myself, my family, and our friends; to make my home more energy efficient; and to buy hybrid cars for everyone in my family.
Somewhere along the line, the loan shark will think seriously about breaking my kneecaps.
You can’t blame President Obama for the national debt he inherited. However, you can blame him and Congress for adding to it. But they aren’t adding to it — they’re multiplying it. The White House recently admitted that they underestimated the ten-year projected size of the national debt by a mere $2 trillion.
Now, about that loan shark: picture foreclosure signs in front of the White House and the Capitol, with a bunch of Chinese and Japanese lined up to buy them (together, they own more than 40 percent of our national debt).
Now here’s the kicker: the national debt is our debt. Our personal share is roughly $38,000, and that grows by about $12 per day.
How much will our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchilden owe? It’s not unreasonable to picture them with broken kneecaps.
It doesn’t matter what is in the president’s or Congress’s health care plans, or in any of their other utopian projects. The bottom line is that we can’t afford them. The No. 1 priority of our government must become the reduction of the national debt.
We should start drawing our own conclusions
Brett E. Young
Greenville
Twice in the same day I encountered separate conversations with fellow teachers and friends resistant to the idea of President Obama making a televised address to our nation’s students. Within minutes, the discussion regressed to the standard Obama-equals-communism discourse with which I’m becoming increasingly familiar and growing very tired.
CNN.com published a story Sept. 3 by Rudy Ruiz that I felt articulated our present situation very well, that is: as a society we’re becoming so jaded by political polarization that we’re no longer able to have intelligent, thoughtful, respectful conversations with others having opposing viewpoints regardless of their merit or validity.
Instead, we draw quick, convenient conclusions prescribed by party leaders and media outlets and close our minds to ideas that challenge our own.
For the president to speak to the youth of this country and say that they have a stake in our society that will be actualized in their lives through education is vital, and desperately needed. Furthermore, we dishonor ourselves and those that have sacrificed tremendously for our country when we assert that the President of the United States has neither the right nor authority to speak to our students about their developing role in America.
As a society, we must open our minds and stop lapping up the performances of sensationalist media and political figures. We need to begin engaging in substantive conversations about policy and demonstrate that process for our nation’s youth.
Be proud that we have a president who talks to kids
Rosalyn Wright
Farrell
I am confused and disheartened to think that we have a society that would seek to deny our leader the chance to speak to our youth and give encouraging words and to think that there is a hidden agenda. We should be ashamed.
Democrat or Republican, we are Americans first. Just as when Bush was in office I may not have agreed with every decision our government made but I did respect his leadership.
Do we have to show our heritage of hate toward one another to the world? When 9/11 hit we came together as one nation, but we have quickly forgotten that we are in this together.
I have witnessed two past presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush give similar speeches to students and there were some negative responses but none like this.
I am proud that we have a leader who thinks enough of the youth in our country that he wants to encourage education and to hear what they think of their future. Lest we forget that our children are our future.
